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Kepler 22b and Climate Change: Instead of Obsessing over Earth-Like Planets, lets Try to Keep this one Earthlike

Juan Cole 12/06/2011

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Dear earthlings:

It doesn’t do you any good to get all excited about finding earth-like planets like Kepler 22-B where the average temperature is 72 degrees F (22 C.), if you are going to turn your own planet into a sweltering tropical swamp.

Kepler 22b system

The Durban climate conference about the fate of our own planet has been a miserable failure. Even China’s surprise announcement of willingness to talk about binding emissions limits is less than meets the eye. We are on track for a rise in average temperatures of some 5 degrees Celsius, something the earth hasn’t experienced since the Eocene 50 million years ago (when there was no surface ice and the world was tropical to the poles, and a third more of the land mass was under water).

It is all very well to wax poetic over earth-like planets out there, but let’s try to keep this one earthlike.

NASA Ames news conference on Kepler 22b:

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About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page

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